


Finding Faith

by ellf



Series: Building Faith [2]
Category: The Dresden Files - All Media Types, The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: Cute Kids, Gen, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2019-01-05 00:22:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12179358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellf/pseuds/ellf
Summary: After working a job for Ragged Angel, Harry drops his new friend off at his house to find out one of his eldest daughters is missing. Harry, being Harry, he can't leave it alone and goes to help. (Side Story to Building Faith.)





	Finding Faith

Finding Faith, a Building Faith Side Job

******************

“Are you sure it’s okay for me to use your phone?” I asked, keeping my eyes on the road. “I mean I can go find a pay phone to call Nick from after dropping you off.”

“Harry,” Michael calmly said. “You can use the phone. It’s fine.”

“Okay.” I paused. A few seconds later, I asked again, “Michael, are you _sure_ it’s okay? I mean, your wife doesn’t seem to like me much.”

“Charity will be fine,” Michael said, wincing slightly as I ran over a pothole with the Beetle. I frowned. Michael had taken that injury while trying to protect me. See, Michael Carpenter was a genuine modern day knight, wielder of _Amoracchius_ which supposedly had a nail from the Cross in it. Yes, that Cross. Yes, one of those nails. I didn’t know if it was actually true, but I couldn’t deny the results. It made the man some kind of holy warrior sent on a mission from God. Literally.

You can imagine the _Blues Brothers_ jokes I made when I met him.

When he’d offered to help me with this latest job I was running for Nick, I almost turned him down. It was supposed to be a simple find the lost item job, a milk run. In the end, I was glad for the help. I didn’t think that I’d be able to make it out of that viper’s nest alone. I just wished that Michael hadn’t been hurt because of me.

“You’re sure it’s okay, Michael?” I asked as I braked at a stoplight. The man was a little shorter than me with a full beard, dark brunette, nearly black. Right now he wore a dark turtleneck sweater and some blue jeans, but his left arm was in a sling, and he had bandages wrapped around one of his ribs. In the back of my car was his sword and my gear.

“I told you, Harry, you should stop worrying.” Michael smiled. “Have a little faith. It will work out.”

I snorted. “As I recall, you’re the one with a little Faith.”

I’d met Michael’s eldest twin daughters when I came to pick him up. They were helping their pregnant mother with breakfast or something, and apparently I’d left a bit of an impression on one of them. She looked me up and down, and made a comment that no eight-year-old should really say, especially around their mother.

I was pretty sure that wasn’t the only reason Charity didn’t like me, but it was in the top three.

“Funny, Harry, but you know what I meant. You’ll be able to use our phone. So please, stop asking and focus on driving.”

Honestly, I’d been more worried about Michael’s injuries. I hoped that it wouldn’t cause him any trouble with his day job to need to heal the way he did. On an apprentice investigator’s salary, I couldn’t really afford to help out much, and I doubt that Michael would accept the help if I offered.

“God provides,” he’d say, and then he’d probably lecture me about something and using my gifts for good.

“Michael, I’m only asking because I want to be…” I trailed off as I pulled the Beetle onto Michael’s street. Sitting in his driveway, next to the pickup truck and minivan that belonged to the Carpenters, was a police cruiser.

“Mother of God…” Michael breathed out. “What are the police doing here?”

“Let’s find out, shall we?” I pulled the Blue Beetle into the driveway, parking behind Michael’s pickup truck, next to the police cruiser. The two of us stepped out of the car, and we walked to his front door, where a patrolman was talking to Charity Carpenter.

Charity was a good looking woman, if I was to be honest. She was built like a brick shithouse, tall, maybe a hair under six feet, blonde, and with an amazing face that held the assurance of a woman twice her age with the beauty of one a little younger. Oh, and she was heavily pregnant, as in, in the ‘about to burst with baby’ level of pregnancy. Of course, right now, her face was more contorted with worry, and when she saw Michael, she called out to him.

“Michael, oh, thank Heaven. Is she with you? Tell me she’s with you,” Charity pleaded as we approached.

“Who?” Michael asked. “There’s nobody with me but Harry…”

“Is this the father?” the officer asked. He was dressed in the standard patrolman uniform, dark hair slicked back, like Bela Lugosi’s in Dracula, only less shiny.

“Yes, Michael’s her father, my husband,” Charity answered.

“Well, you’ve given us what you can,” the patrolman said, flipping his notebook shut. “I’ll file the report at the station, and we’ll get looking for your daughter right away.”

“What?” Michael asked. “Charity, what happened?”

“Faith, she ran away,” Charity answered. No, that… that wasn’t right. Michael was a good man, and he didn’t deserve something like that to happen to him.

“Harry…” Michael started toward me, but before I could respond, Charity clutched her stomach and let out a groan.

“Michael…” Charity groaned out. “The baby’s coming.”

The patrolman paled. “I’ll get an ambulance here immediately, and we’ll get you to the hospital, ma’am.”

“But what about… uh… Faith?” Charity asked.

“We won’t let that impede our investigation, ma’am, but you need to get to the hospital.” The patrolman started back toward his car.

It was at that point that I noticed a tugging on my duster. I’d been so focused on the conversation that was happening in front of me, that I’d completely ignored the fact that a short tow-headed girl walked up to me. She was missing two of her front teeth and was dressed in a jean skirt and a long-sleeved blouse.

“Mr. Wizard,” the girl said in a pleading tone. “I’m Molly. Can you find my sister?”

I kneeled down so that I was closer to her eye level, though I avoided looking her in the eye. I never wanted to inflict a soulgaze on a child. “What makes you think I can do that?”

“Because you’re a wizard! Magic and stuff, and you can find her! She must be so scared right now. She was so scared when she ran away… She must be worse now…” Molly said with all the innocence a girl her age could muster up. Pure innocent belief was a rare thing these days, and call me a bleeding heart, but I couldn’t ignore a little girl’s worries. “Besides, Daddy says you can find all sorts of stuff… I don’t want you to find stuff though. Just her.”

“I’ll do my best,” I said to her.

“No!” Molly said, her eyes welling up with tears. “That’s not good enough! Grown-ups always say they’ll do their best when they don’t want to do something! You need to find her! Bring her home.”

Oh, Hell’s bells, I could never deal with a girl crying. I found myself tripping over myself as I apologized. “I’ll find her, Molly. I’ll find your sister. Promise.”

Then I found myself with tiny arms wrapped around me and a tiny face dripping tears onto my duster. I gently extricated myself, pulling a loose hair off of the girl as I did so and pocketing it. I stood up and walked over to Michael.

“Go with your wife, Michael. I’ll find your daughter.”

“Are you sure, Harry?” Michael asked. “I can come along…”

I shook my head. “Michael, you’re hurt, and your wife is about to give birth.”

Charity just looked at me. “Mr. Dresden. Please bring her home safe.”

“I promise,” I said. “She’ll be home in time to see her newborn sibling.”

The officer walked up again at that moment. “Ambulance is on its way. My partner will be by the hospital to check on you and continue the statement.” He turned to me and said, “Hey, I know you… Ragged Angel, right? Harry Dresden, Nick Christian’s apprentice?”

“Yeah, that’s me, officer…”

“Vasquez. Ragged Angel helping out the search here?”

“Yes, pro bono.”

“Good, we’ll see who finds her first.” Vasquez smirked, and I returned it.

“Yeah. We will.” I turned and headed toward the Blue Beetle. I needed to get home and gather some materials, but I was going to find Faith Carpenter and bring her back to her family.

I made a promise to a friend and his little girl, and finding things was a bit of a specialty of mine. I was sure I’d have her home safe before dinner. It’d be simple. Nothing could possibly go wrong.

Could it?

****************

I still needed to call and check in with Nick, and I needed to go pick up some supplies for the tracking spell. To do both, I pulled up to a convenience store that happened to have a payphone. I figured I’d make the call first, go in and buy the couple items that I needed, along with a nice Coke, and then I’d get started on finding Michael’s daughter. Parking the Blue Beetle, I noted that the engine seemed to stutter a bit. I’d need to have that looked at by a mechanic sometime soon, but I was sure it’d manage the day. The Beetle was a reliable car, and it was mine.

I went to the pay phone, pulling out a couple quarters, and I inserted one and dialed a number.

It rang a couple times before a gruff voice on the other end answered, “Ragged Angel Investigations…”

“Hey Nick, it’s Harry.”

“Harry! Good to hear from you, kid.” Nick was a good man, and a great investigator. I was glad that he was the one teaching me the ropes of the PI business. “So, did you manage to…”

“Found the thing? Yeah. Had a bit of help getting it back too. I’ll drop it by the office later today.”

“Why not now?” Nick asked.

“Had another job come up,” I answered. “The help I had? His daughter ran away while he was helping me.”

“Do I want to know what he was helping you with?” Nick asked.

“Probably not. I’m finding his kid though.”

“You charging him?”

“No. Not a chance.” I couldn’t believe that Nick would ask me something like that.

“Good. You’re doing a favor for a friend who helped you. Now what do you know about the runaway?” Nick asked.

“Wait, you’re helping?” I asked.

“Of course. You’re still my apprentice, and you need some help. So tell me about the kid.”

“She’s eight-years-old, blonde, a twin. Identical to her sister. Catholic.”

“… You didn’t find out much about the kid before deciding to look for her.” Nick sounded disappointed.

“I didn’t exactly have enough time. Her mom went into labor and Michael, her father, had to go with her to the hospital. I was just going to track her down with a tracking spell,” I said, a little frustrated.

“Harry,” Nick said. “I suppose that’s fine. I won’t really be of much help to you there, given my abilities, but give me a call if you need something I can help with.”

I smiled. “Of course, Nick. I’ll call you when I have the girl.”

“Later, Harry.” I heard the click when Nick hung up the phone, and I did so myself.

Afterward, I went inside the convenience store and bought the items I was missing for this spell. I needed something to help set up the circle, so I bought a container of salt, and I needed something to keep me awake, so I bought a couple bottles of Coke. It had been a long past couple of days, but I was mostly okay to do this spell and a few more afterward if need be.

After buying the required items, I drove to an area that I could perform the spell in relative peace. See, a tracking spell is a simple application of thaumaturgy. Something that was once a part of something still has a sympathetic link to the thing it came from. Normally I would use a bit of something that broke off from the missing item, or I’d use a piece of fur from the missing pet, or I’d get a hair from the missing person. Unfortunately, I hadn’t exactly had time to go over Faith’s room to try and find a hair I could use.

Faith Carpenter, however, had a twin sister, and an identical one at that. Twins were special, thaumaturgically speaking, in that they shared a bond between them that was quantifiable by magic. It wasn’t always strong, but we’ve all heard stories about twins seeming to feel the other’s pain, or of those twins that were separated at birth but knew each other when they met again. Is it any real surprise that I would be able to leverage this bond to allow me to find one of the missing ones? When Molly had asked me to find her sister, I managed to get a bit of her hair from her head after lightly tugging, and given the sympathetic link between twins and the sympathetic link between the hair and Molly, I would be able to use it to fuel the tracking spell.

After laying the salt in a circle and empowering it with an effort of will, I removed the pentacle amulet that I got from my mother from around my neck. Wrapping the blonde hair around the chain, I began to build the energy for my spell. Muttering a nonsense incantation, I focused on finding this little girl, using my spell to zero in on the twin that this hair didn’t come from. After half a minute, I broke the circle, and my amulet gave a tug in a northeastern direction.

Unfortunately, due to the nature of the spell, it looked for the most direct path to where its target was, so I’d have to recast a couple times to try and find this girl. I climbed in the Beetle and drove in the general direction of where the amulet pointed for a few miles, and then I got out and cast again, checking again each time to make sure I was going in the right direction.

I passed through a couple parts of Chicago that I wouldn’t want to find the girl at, and luckily upon consulting the spell again, each time, she wasn’t there. Eventually I came to a parking lot outside a park that went to Lake Michigan, and after circling the lot a couple times, I was able to triangulate the position of my target there. Faith Carpenter had to be in the park, but it looked like the only way I was going to continue was by foot.

I parked the Beetle, and I got out. I smelled something. The faint hint of the coppery scent of blood. Frowning, I lowered the amulet. I could always recast the spell, if I needed to. What worried me was what the smell was coming from. I walked around the parking lot, until the smell started to get stronger. Looking underneath one of the cars, I saw it.

I’d seen dead bodies before, but none really in the shape that this one was in. His skin, yes his, had been split open and removed. It looked like something had taken a good chunk out of his muscles and other organs as well, something with long, sharp claws, or long sharp teeth tore out the ligaments and the tendons, and it had just... done something to it. Lying to the side of it was the discarded remains of… was that a police uniform? The hair still remained on the body too. Slicked-back. No. This couldn’t be… Officer Vasquez? Had he beaten me here and then run into something he couldn’t handle? Why did it take the skin? There were things that could disguise themselves as human, did it take the skin so it could disguise itself as him?

I glanced at the sun, which clearly only had a little longer before it set, and I frowned. It was the wrong time of day for most monsters to have done this, but whatever had, probably wasn’t all that far. Neither, for that matter, was the little girl I’d come here to find. I needed to find her quickly, before this monster did. I couldn’t in good conscience let the girl stay in the park with a monster if it were indeed here, but after I returned Faith to her parents? I was going to play Elmer Fudd. No. John Connor. John Connor made more sense.

I held up the amulet. Damn. I needed to recast the spell. I did so, quickly, and I felt the strong, insistent tug on the chain drawing me into the park. Looked like that was where I was going to have to head, after all. As I went into the park, I looked at where my pentacle amulet was pulling, but I also looked at each person as I passed by them. Any one of them could be what had eaten the body of Vasquez, but taking the skin, taking the badge… I walked through a grassy area that would be used for picnics in the summertime, but now that it was fall, the leaves simply crowded the grass, and more leaves would be coming. I tensed when I saw a uniformed officer walking down the path alongside the area, his dark hair slicked back the way Vasquez’s was. Could this have been the monster? Did it disguise itself as Vasquez for some nefarious scheme? He walked off before I could see his face to verify. I could have chased him down, but I still needed to locate Faith. I needed to get her home to her parents before her mother finished giving birth. I could hunt the monster down afterward. Whatever it was.

I passed some family doing their last cookout of the year, before the cold preludes of winter truly took hold, and I looked them over. The amulet was pointing past them, so Faith wasn’t among them, but they too could have been in danger from the monster, whatever it was, or one of them could be one of it. However, I thought I was onto something with the cop thing. I looked around, but I didn’t see the Vasquez doppelganger. The amulet still pulled me onward, and I walked around the family, ignoring comments from their little ones about my height. I knew I was tall.

There! Stars and stones, they really were identical. Sitting on a bench facing the lake was Molly’s twin sister, Faith. She looked like she’d been crying some, though she wasn’t right now. She stared out at the lake, clearly contemplating something, but as she wasn’t speaking I couldn’t really tell what. I started to approach her, but I noticed a dark-haired woman in a patrolman uniform approaching the girl. The woman offered Faith a smile and started to talk with her. Faith talked back. I couldn’t really hear what the two were saying from here, so I Listened.

Listening isn’t really magic; it’s really just a matter of using the senses that you were born with in a way that they were intended. You focus on a specific area, and you force every other sound out of the way so that you can hear what’s being said.

“So, what’s a little girl like you doing out here all alone?” asked the officer.

“I’m… I’m not alone,” Faith answered, clearly lying. “My parents are around.”

“Oh yeah?” The officer gestured. “Where at?”

“Around. I don’t know. That way, I guess…” Faith pointed down the path. “I wanted to be alone…”

“Girls your age shouldn’t be alone. Never know what kind of predator could be lurking around any corner.”

“That’s what officers like you are here to protect us from, right?” Faith asked, her voice full of innocence. If only she knew about what might be lurking here in the park. I debated just letting her leave with the officer, but I was pretty sure this officer didn’t know she was a runaway.

“Yes, protection,” the officer said. “So, why did you want to be alone?”

“They can’t! I mean…” Faith paused, clearly in thought. “I didn’t… Mo… I mean… I shouldn’t be… They want…”

“So, you going to make sense anytime soon, kid?”

“I don’t think they want…” Faith paused. “I mean; I know… They don’t…”

“–want you?” The officer asked, clearly finishing the thought.

“It isn’t a matter of if they want me, Officer,” Faith said, clearly trying to sound more mature, more clear... “They don’t… they shouldn’t… need me.”

“Nobody needs you, girl.” Okay, what the hell was with that?

“You’re right, Officer.”

“Nobody will miss you either.” Now that’s just plain untrue.

“I know, and they shouldn’t. I could mess things up,” Faith said. Mess things up? Her parents wanted her. “I could… I’m scared…”

“Don’t be.” The officer smiled. Something wasn’t quite right. “Everyone has to go some time. Why not here? Why not now?”

Then _he_ showed up. I didn’t catch his face again, but I recognized that slicked-back hair and uniform. He walked up to Faith and the lady officer, and it clicked. Vasquez was _eaten_ , and there really wasn’t a lot of his body left. Very few things I knew ate that much flesh that quickly, and there really was only one of them that I knew of that could walk around safely in daylight.

“Faith!” I cried out as I started toward the trio there. “Run! He’s a ghoul!”

The female officer wrapped an arm around the little girl’s shoulders at that point, and she placed a hand on the presumptive ghoul’s chest. Then she started to change, limbs extending, nails sharpening into claws, mouth and jaw jutting out into a snarling snout. The claws pushed through the person I had assumed was a ghoul and out his back, dripping with red blood.

“Well,” the ghoul said. “You were half right.”

Faith screamed.

*******************************

Stars and stones, this wasn’t good. Faith was locked in the crook of the arm of the ghoul, and a cop, one that I was certain was the ghoul himself, had been impaled on the ghoul’s claws. Officer Vasquez hung there, blood dripping down his spine as the ghoul just stood there, staring me down. I reached into my pocket and grasped my blasting rod. I’d left my staff in the car in my haste to hunt down Faith. I regretted not going back for it now, but it was what it was. I’d have to get Faith out without the aid of my staff, but my first priority was her safety. The ghoul and whatever else about it came secondary to getting the little girl to her parents.

“Alright, you’ve proven your point. Let the girl go,” I said, pulling my blasting rod out. I channeled a bit of will down it, and its runes lit up. The tip glowed a bright red. “Come on, Deathstrike, let her go.”

“Wizard!” The ghoul withdrew its claws from the police officer, and he fell backward. He still appeared to be breathing, but that probably wouldn’t be for too long. “You shall not take my meal from me!”

“I came across your meal in the parking lot, Deathstrike. Let the girl go. She’s not to be eaten.” I leveled the blasting rod, lining up the shot. I needed to aim this properly. If I aimed wrong I could hit the kid, and that was completely unacceptable. Faith squirmed in the ghoul’s arm, wriggling her feet, and while she had stopped screaming, she looked like she could start again at any second. Hell’s bells, I wouldn’t blame her.

“And if I don’t let her go, Wizard? If I choose to take my meal with me and eat it right here?” Faith paled and squirmed harder.

“Then we’re going to have a problem, and I don’t think you want to have this kind of problem, ghoulie.” I nearly had the shot lined up. This ghoul was far more eloquent than I had expected from its ilk, but in the end it was still a monster that wanted to eat a kid. I couldn’t let that happen. “Thrice I ask, and done. Let the kid–”

A gunshot rang out, and the ghoul caught a bullet in its shoulder above where it was holding Faith. Hell’s bells, I wouldn’t have been able to make that shot, and the officer, who looked remarkably like Vasquez, had made it from where he was bleeding out on the ground. The ghoul’s grip loosened up, but Faith still struggled within its arms.

Faith stopped struggling for a second, brought both hands up and grabbed onto the ghoul’s arm. She then lowered her face and… Oh God, that was disgusting. Faith bit the ghoul’s arm, and it let go of her, screaming in pain.

“Faith, get down!” I called out, and the blonde listened to me, flattening her small body to the ground. “All right, you wanted to play hardball. _Fuego!_ ”

Fire lanced from my blasting rod, over Faith and the patrolman’s prone bodies and slammed into the ghoul, searing its flesh. I switched my blasting rod to my left hand and ran forward, aiming my hand. See, on my right hand I wear a silver ring that collects and stores kinetic energy from each movement I do with it. I hadn’t needed to use the ring at all during my excursion with Michael, so it currently still had a full charge. One I was going to expend now.

“Get away from her, you bitch!” I released a wave of pure force at the ghoul, continuing the onslaught and blasting it back twenty feet. I quickly ran over to Faith, and picked the kid up. I turned to the officer on the ground, and he just looked at me.

“Go! Take her with you,” he gasped out.

“But…” I couldn’t just leave him here to die. Sure, I might have thought he was the ghoul first, but that didn’t mean that a good officer deserved to die because of me.

“Go! I’m dead anyway!” The officer pulled up his gun. “I’ll hold it off!”

I grimaced. Getting Faith to safety was important, and… God forgive me.

“Harry?” Faith asked, a little wearily. She scrunched up her face between words, like she was trying to get a bad taste out of her mouth. I’d probably do the same thing if I’d taken a bite out of a ghoul. “What are you doing?”

“We’re going to meep meep out of here!” I turned away from where the ghoul was, and started running. The first priority would be to get Faith back to the car. Then we’d get the Beetle started and start on our way to the hospital where Faith’s parents were.

“Harry…”

Then Faith would be home with her siblings just in time to meet the new one. I was sure that Faith would probably be overjoyed to see the new sibling. Lord knows if I were in her situation, I’d have been ecstatic. I ignored the sounds of gunfire, focusing instead on the positives.

“Harry…” Faith’s voice was a little more insistent.

“Yes, Faith?”

“It’s chasing us… It ran past the officer!” The officer’s gunshots stopped, but I couldn’t tell if that was because he was out of bullets or if he was… Then I heard the crackling of a radio.

“Kid, keep an eye on it.”

“O-okay…” I could feel her heart racing as I ran. Now, I could run pretty fast, but I wasn’t sure if I could outrun a ghoul, even with a head start. Which is why I cheated as we ran through the now empty picnic area.

“ _Ventas! Ventas Servitas!_ ” I thrust my free hand out and used the wind I generated to pull anything and everything that was loose back behind our path. I wasn’t sure how much the ghoul would be inconvenienced, but it hopefully would be enough that we could get to the parking lot. “Tell me that did something, kid.”

“It’s dodging the stuff you used. Oh, it just tripped over a grill!”

“That’s good, Faith.” We made it to the parking lot, and I opened the driver’s side door, placing Faith inside. “Get in the back seat and hand me my staff.”

Faith nodded, quickly climbing back there. She passed me my staff with ease, and, shaking out my shield bracelet, I was ready for the ghoul. Which was helpful, as it jumped out of the underbrush, slashing at me with its claws. I rolled out of the way, but the Blue Beetle’s door wasn’t so lucky. The claws dug through the metal like butter, leaving it with barely a thin strip of metal holding it to the car. Faith screamed again from the back seat, and the ghoul turned toward the car.

“Oh no you don’t! _Forzare!_ ” I used the force spell of my staff to grab and fling the ghoul away from my car, and I stepped between the two.

“WIZARD! I will not be denied my prey!” the ghoul snarled out. “I will feast upon you and grind her bones to make bread.”

“Really, going to pretend to be a giant now?” I asked. “You know what they say, bigger they are, harder they fall. _Fulminos_!” I pulled a jolt of electricity from nearby powerlines toward the ghoul’s body, aiming for the gunshot wound, but it jumped out of the way.

It charged me, and it took a quick activation of my shield bracelet to block the claws as they came. I held fast with this, but I leaned my staff against me and tossed my blasting rod back to my right hand. When the ghoul let up, I grinned.

“Bye-bye ghoulie, _fuego_!” I unleashed a point-blank blast of fire at the ghoul, which struck it full-on, searing a hole through where the officer had shot it.

“I’ll kill you! Both of you!” the ghoul yelled and lunged for the car, but it stopped at the doorway.

I felt _power_ , and familiar power at that. A holy sword had been drawn, and a holy light permeated the area. I looked into the car from behind the ghoul, and there was little Faith Carpenter, holding _Amoracchius_ by the hilt, pointing the blade out the door of the car. The blade had to be longer than the girl was tall, but she was able to lift it without much issue. I doubted she’d be able to actually _use_ it, but it kept the ghoul at bay.

“S-stay back!” Faith ordered, and I reached into my pocket. While I could have killed the ghoul with magic, it was already injured enough that it wouldn’t really be that hard to do this while it was mesmerized by Faith and the Sword.

I pulled out my revolver, and placed it on the side of the ghoul’s head. “You know; I can’t even remember if I loaded this right. Did I fill it all the way up? Did I leave a chamber unloaded? I guess you’ll have to ask yourself if you feel lucky. Well, do you?”

The ghoul slowly turned toward me, and I had my shield bracelet ready, but so too was my trigger finger. The moment its claws twitched, I pulled. Point blank shot to the ghoul’s temple, followed by me slamming my staff down on its spine and using a _forzare_ there.

“Is it… is it…?” Faith wavered with the sword a bit.

“Dead? Yeah, looks like.” I shoved the ghoul’s body away and stowed my revolver in my pocket. By sunrise the next day, the ghoul’s body would be gone. The gunshot should have destroyed its brain, which theoretically would have stopped its regeneration, and if that hadn’t been enough, the force blast to the spine should be. The only thing I was worried about was if anyone saw us.

“Oh, thank God.” Faith tossed _Amoracchius_ to the side, and climbed out of the car. She ran over to me and wrapped her arms around my lower body. I lifted her up and she wrapped her arms around my neck, burying her face into my shoulder, crying. “I didn’t mean to… I didn’t want… The cop…”

“The important thing is you’re all right, Faith.”

“But I could mess things all up…”

“Mess what up?”

“Everything! I just could and I don’t and then the ghoul and the… Oh God, Molly…” She sobbed harder into my shoulder.

“Tell you what, kid. Let’s sheathe your dad’s sword and see if the Beetle will even start. I’ll get you back to your parents, who _do_ miss you. And Molly who wants you home safe.”

“So sorry… I shouldn’t have… I just…” I patted the back of Faith’s head.

“Let’s get you home, kid.”

“… Kay.”

I placed Faith in the passenger seat of the Beetle, and I reached back to sheathe Amoracchius, being careful with the holy blade. I didn’t know why Michael had left it in the back of the Beetle, but it needed to be returned to the Knight. Probably when we went back to his place after the hospital.

“Harry?” Faith asked from the seat next to me as I placed my staff back in the back seat next to Michael’s blade and pushed the seat back.

“Yes, Faith?”

“On the way back, can we stop and get something to drink? And maybe some mouthwash?” Faith grimaced.

I started up the Beetle, and shrugged. “Why?”

“It tastes nasty…” She stuck her tongue out and made a few gagging sounds.

“Okay, we’ll stop and get something.” Yes. I was never going to even try to bite a ghoul myself. “And then we’ll take you to meet your new sibling.”

“And get you a new car door?” Faith asked as the driver’s side door fell off the car. Damnit, that was the original door!

“… And get me a new car door.”

Faith settled back in her seat, still making some faces as she tried to work the taste out of her mouth. “Good.”

I got out of the car and lifted the door so that I could hold it in place as I drove. I didn’t want to get pulled over with the kid in the car. Then I put the Blue Beetle into gear and started driving. I had a kid to return. I just hoped that the officer managed to get help in time.

*******************

Michael had managed to write down the hospital that Charity was going to be at and gave it to me. After stopping at Burger King to get Faith some much-needed food and drink, I fished out the hospital name and tried to figure out how to get there. I hadn’t been living in Chicago long, so I didn’t quite have all the streets memorized, but I was bound to get there sometime. I couldn’t just stop for directions either; I had my pride. Still, I was pretty confident I was going in the right direction anyway.

“Harry? Where are we going?” My diminutive passenger clearly didn’t have my confidence, as she sat up in the seat and looked out the window. “It doesn’t look like we’re headed to my neighborhood.”

“That’s because we’re not going to your neighborhood, Faith,” I said. I still held the door shut with my left hand as I drove. “We’re going to the hospital. You’re going to be a big sister.”

Faith let out a snort and crossed her arms. “I’m already a big sister.”

I drove silently for a few seconds. It’d hit her when it hit her. I started to count the seconds as I drove.

“… Wait, you mean…?” Faith looked over to me, eyes wide. “Mommy’s having the baby today?”

“Yeah, that’s why your dad didn’t come with me to find you. He’s with your mom.”

“Huh…” Faith looked down at her arms. She whispered something to herself that I didn’t quite catch as I was focused on the road.

“So, what are you hoping for? I know you have two brothers and two sisters already.”

“Mommy’s having a girl,” Faith said with confidence. “She’s going to be pretty special… like all of her kids.” She looked down at her drink again and sipped.

“That includes you too, you know.” I stopped at a stoplight and turned to face her, avoiding her eyes. “You’re pretty special. Your parents were worried sick, and I’m sure if it weren’t for your mom being in labor, she and your dad both would have come to get you.”

“And fought the _fucking_ ghoul.”

“And fought the fu–hey wait a minute. You need to not say stuff like that. You’re eight,” I said. “You shouldn’t be saying things like that.”

“Oh?” Faith smiled at me, eyes twinkling. “Things like what? Ghoul?”

“No, that’s not what I meant.”

“The? Fought? And?” Faith asked as I pulled into a turn lane for the hospital. There it was.

“Come on, you know what I meant.”

“Nuh-uh…” Faith shook her head. “What am I not supposed to say?”

“You shouldn’t say words like fu–oh no you don’t.”

Faith giggled. “Almost had you!”

I pulled into the hospital parking lot, shaking my head. “You’ll have to do better than that to get me, Faith.”

Faith giggled a bit more. “Oh, I will get you, Mr. Wizard…”

“Just… not around your mother, okay kid?”

“Okay.” Faith looked around. “Mommy’s here?”

“Should be. Let’s get you inside.” Normally I didn’t exactly like going in hospitals, given the chance of something going wrong, but today I was more or less drained after that fight with the ghoul, and I was pretty confident I could keep a lid on my emotions long enough to not truly disrupt anything. Besides. I needed to see this job through to completion, and that meant getting Faith back to her family.

After parking and laying the door against the car, Faith and I headed toward the entrance of Cook County hospital. Faith paused at the entrance.

“This is where Mommy’s having her baby?” Faith’s voice wavered slightly.

“It’s the address your dad gave me,” I said, looking at her. “Why, is there something wrong?”

“N-no…” Faith looked down at the ground. “I don’t know…”

“Faith…” I said, reproachfully, but before she could respond, another voice called out.

“Faiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiith!” A blonde blur ran around me and wrapped her arms around her identical sister. Though the two were wearing different clothes, I was having a hard time discerning which was which. “You’re back! Well, not back yet, but you’re here…”

“I…” Faith wrapped her arms around her sister, returning the hug. I swear I saw tension leaving both of them at that moment. Faith whispered, “I’m so sorry, Molly…”

“Don’t you do that again, Fai,” Molly said. “If you’re scared, you can just lean on me. I’m your big sister, after all.”

Faith snorted. “Two minutes.”

“Two minutes older means I’m still the big sister, Fai.” Molly rubbed her hand down her sister’s back, and I looked around to see an older woman walking up accompanied by three more children.

“Oh, my… Thank the Lord…” The older woman said. She resembled Charity in height and looks, and she carried her age well, maybe in her early fifties. Her hair was still blonde, though places of it had silvered in spots, giving her a distinguished look. Her eyes were blue, like Charity’s, and she had her daughter’s nose and lips. She had the kind of kindness that grandmothers were supposed to have when looking after their grandchildren, and she wore a simple pair of jeans with a green sweater. “Faith, I wasn’t sure you’d be here…”

“Told you, Grandma,” Molly said. “Mr. Wizard can find anything!”

“That’d be you, young man?” The woman turned to me.

“Yes, ma’am. Harry Dresden, professional Wizard and PI in training,” I introduced myself.

“Now I don’t know about all that magic stuff and mumbo jumbo, but you deserve thanks, Mr. Dresden. Thank you, for finding my granddaughter,” the woman said. “We’re heading in to wait for their mother to be done, are you coming as well?”

I paused for a second, looked at my car and then looked at the family. “I suppose I could. I need to talk with Michael, after all.”

She nodded, and we headed in as a group. Seeing the looks on Michael and Charity’s faces when Faith showed up to hold their new sister, brought a smile to my face. Charity even had a smile for me that day, though she definitely still had some issue as I stood back. Michael and I spoke and I returned the Sword to him. I stopped by the ER on a hunch, and it turned out that Officer Emilio Vasquez, twin brother of Officer Esteban Vasquez, had been brought here from the park. While he was in critical condition, it was increasingly likely that he’d survive. Unfortunately, someone had still died to that ghoul. I stopped outside Officer Vasquez’s room to place a business card on his door before calling up Nick and my mechanic to arrange transport of the item I’d actually been hired to retrieve. I was sure the Blue Beetle could be salvaged, but I didn’t think that the door I had would be able to be used again. Still, while there were a few kinks to this, things mostly seemed to work out, despite the unfortunate deaths.

Reuniting Faith with her family brought a warmth to my heart that I hadn’t really felt much in the past few years, and I decided that I liked that feeling. This was what magic was supposed to be used for, and this was how I wanted to spend the rest of my life: helping people. Helping good people to get their problems solved. I wanted to make sure people had the opportunity to be happy. I might not have been able to save that one Officer, but at least his brother still had a chance at happiness. Good people deserved that.

Happiness is really something that’s just around the corner in this city. You just need to look within and find a little faith.


End file.
